Dolly’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol - Southbank Centre

Prices for remaining performances are now down to what I consider a reasonable level - from £28.50 on rail strike days when there's currently huge availability - but I rely 99% on the trains.


Most current deals are cheaper from ticket agencies than booking direct with the venue, which also charges a £3.50 booking fee. I got Front Stalls for Sunday 1st for £43.50 all in.

Unnecessary cynicism and negativity. I've been to the theatre just over 200 times in 2022 and enjoyed all but three of the shows. About £6000 very well spent.

A handful of beautiful songs and a very good company. Several empty seats in the front stalls and people from the rear stalls moved to them during the interval.
If you can grab a cheap ticket I suggest you catch this before it closes.

Yes, I did exactly that (£43.50) and despite suggestions to the contrary in this thread  money very well spent as I enjoyed Smoky Mountain ... just as much as I did Hex on my third visit to that a couple of weeks earlier.

It tells a familiar story in a slightly different way performed by a lovely cast and nobody pens a traditional sounding country song like Dolly, a true " World Treasure".

About 75% full on New Year's Day. I moved from an okay side seat in row C at 14.58 to what I would consider one of the five best seats in the stalls with nobody in front and loads of legroom. I hope it's back for Christmas 2023.

I enjoyed the matinée of this today. It's got excellent ensemble songs and singing, but the drama absolutely sinks.

Some spoilers follow. . .

For some reason, somewhat egged on by this board (I'm easily influenced), I got it in my head to see as many "A Christmas Carols" this holiday period as I possibly could, and this was not the worst.

The main problem with it is that it fails dramatically, partly because the whole town is so damn happy (if they are so happy, what's the problem?), and partly because Scrooge is not so bad (he hangs around with Tiny Tim as his best buddy from the opening scene, even giving him an IOU for "a penny" (big money in 1936) for absolutely nothing in return!

I mean, come on!

Robert Bathurst is creditably mean-spirited as Scrooge, which, together with his handlebar moustache and 95 percent convincing accent, makes him appear the part, but not only is he not actually mean enough, being Tiny Tim's grouchy buddy, but he also gets very little to do but look on mournfully, while the actor playing his younger self appears to be even less bad than he is.

In this show, he only becomes wealthy because Jacob Marley is setting him up as some kind of fall guy for his nefarious business dealings, and he uses his smarts to outwit Marley. Hardly Scrooge at all really.

Indeed, the most devilish behaviour in the whole thing is when George Maguire's Jacob Marley jumps up on a table and starts singing like he's Mick Jagger singing "Sympathy for the Devil," or any number from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, lol. It's a lot of fun, but it's only one song and he's not actually the principal character.

Much more typical of the show are the communal bonding songs, and these are wonderful! They depict a spritely mountain community having a hoedown of a good time, with some mighty melodic and celebratory communal singing, despite everything Scrooge supposedly throws at them.

Indeed one song is just called "Good Time" and it did indeed look and sound like an awesome good time, with Sarah O'Connor, Vicki Lee Taylor, Halle Brown and Mitchell Zhanghaza sounding particularly awesome! I immensely enjoyed these songs, which were so infectious that I could easily have believed I'd heard and loved them countless times before, despite hearing them for the very first time. "Appalachian Snowfall" was perhaps the best song of all, as it mixed in wistful notes the other songs were lacking.

The worst singer is Bathurst himself, who gets a finale number, but his fearless attempt at singing is as immensely endearing as his character. If only he hadn't been so endearing all along.

Indeed, the piece works best as a study of loneliness, with Bathurst looking helplessly and mournfully in from the outside, as a boisterous and joyful community parties on without him.

At the end, he becomes part of the hoedown, but the whole thing ain't Scrooge. It's all Dolly!

3 and a half stars for some superb Dolly Parton songs effervescently performed.